Blood Moon Rising, John Stormm [ebook audio reader TXT] 📗

TALES OF THE WITCH CLAN

BLOOD MOON RISING

     The windows of the family kwoon were open, letting the cool autumn air circulate freely within. The old man’s oaken practice sword never wavered, rapping a tattoo that shook him down in his bones. Jumping and whirling, long, silken, white hair streaming out like a banner, Jon’s father never tired of sword drills. A few more moments of such a brutal attack and he would be on his knees. Then without a word, his father lowered his weapon and stepped back.

“Dad!” Jon gasped, in the wake of his father’s attack, “I’ve got to catch my breath.”

“I could use a hot cup of sassafras.” the old wizard acceded. “Care for some?”

“What I want is cold and wet,” Jon panted, “on me, in me, all over!”
He shook his head. Where did his father get so much energy? He grabbed some bottled water from the fridge. Even though in the past year, he had shot up another inch or so, and was now taller than his dad’s six foot five inch frame, he couldn‘t keep up with the old man no matter how hard he tried. While serving as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan, he had turned twenty one. He looked like his father, except that he carried his mother’s Cherokee features. Dad was a blond, blue eyed, Celtic barbarian, from an ancient, Irish witch clan, Mom a dark eyed, raven haired, civilized version of Native American loveliness, from a Baptist family.

So different. How did they ever manage to stay together as long as they did and rear four children? Jon smiled to himself. Karma overran dogma. At least that is what his father always said.

“We’re going to have to work on your transitions,” the old man broke in to his reverie, “both to and from an assassin’s grip. It’ll save your life, someday.”

“I suppose that’s possible, Dad.” Jon chuckled. “But I don’t get drawn into much lethal swordplay these days. After all, it’s the Twenty-first Century. They use Glocks and Ingrams now, instead of broadswords.”

     “Be that as it may,” the old man countered, “there are some who won’t rely on machines that can fail, when they want to kill. The Blood Moon is coming.”
     

“Well, we’ll have to work on those moves later.” Jon gulped his bottled water. “I have to go take Mel and the twins to their doctor’s appointment by ten.”

* * *

     Melanie was the eldest of Jonathan’s three sisters. While her husband, James, was at work, other members of the family would come by to help rear the newest clan members. The six foot tall amazon had her mother’s dark eyed, raven haired, beauty and her father’s physical and spiritual disposition. Her first pregnancy netted them a pair of healthy twin boys. Years ago, their father proclaimed that she would be groomed as the clannad’s matriarch. She was the old man’s favorite, but you wouldn’t know it for all the hell he had put her through while expecting her to shine. Never once did she let her father down. She would die trying first, and like her father, that wasn’t likely to happen easily.

The regal matriarch of the Storm Witch Clan was up to her elbows in baby pooh. Diaper changing time with the twins was not an event that Jon cherished. He loved his nephews fiercely, but his stomach had its own opinion.

“C’mon, Jon,” Mel snapped, “Shake a leg with those baby wipes or we’ll be late.”

“If I shake anyone’s leg” he gagged. “God knows what else may roll out of there!”

“Men can be such babies!” Mel laughed.

* * *

     The boys were cleaned up and loaded into the minivan, and on their way to their pediatric appointment in short order.

“Mel, I gotta talk about Dad,” Jon blurted out. When he had left his father at the kwoon, the old man had grabbed his great sword for even more practice. “He’s like a maniac with those swords of his lately. He mentioned something about preparing for the Blood Moon,.. What’s up with that?”

“It happens close to Halloween this year, Jon.” Mel explained, “It’s a great full moon for working curses. Around the time of Samhain, the veil is thinnest between the darkest worlds. I think Dad is worried about what may come through.”

“Shouldn’t he be practicing his spell craft instead?” he asked. “This will be a spirit thing, won’t it? What good are swords?”

“Two things, brother…” Mel said, raising an index finger. “One: Dad may seem somewhat eccentric to outsiders, but we know who and what he really is. Respect that.” Raising her second finger in a witch sign below her eyes, she said, “Two: Knowledge is power. You should go to the source of your questions and ask him. He’s your father, and the most knowledgeable wizard you’ll find on this topic.”

“It’s just that when I ask him stuff, like where and how he got those scars, he gives me some off-the-wall answer,” Jon complained, “and when I call him on that, he laughs at me and tells me the truth is even harder to believe. Also, I think I’m afraid of his answer, and I was hoping you would give me some normalcy,” he said sullenly.

“Normal?” Mel’s eyebrows arched, “In this family? I’m afraid to tell you that para-normal is as close as you’re going to get. We weren’t born for such things.”

“A couple years of Army life, and just seeing you taking care of the twins gave me a false sense of normal.” Jon laughed.

“I noticed that the normal act of changing diapers didn’t sit too well with you either, brother mine.” Mel giggled, as Jon faked gagging.

Gareth and Callum checked out fine with their pediatrician and got their shots, which made them cranky the rest of the day. Melanie had her hands full with their care and feeding. Jonathan was only too happy to help with mundane chores as he pondered his father’s obsessive behavior.

Later in the day, Becky, his second oldest sister, came upstairs to find Jon. Like his other sisters, she was about six feet tall, but with a willowy figure, as opposed to the harder frames of the others. With her mother’s looks she could’ve been a model, but was attending college to become a veterinarian.

“Dad called for you,” she said, “I didn’t know you were home, so I took a message. He said to meet him at Kidron for practice tomorrow.”

The mention of the brook Kidron meant that practice was going to reach extreme limits. Practice moves and simple sparring was done either in the kwoon or the backyard, but all the full contact moves were done on dead wood stands in the deep woods near the brook. The Storm kids had learned and practiced wood lore and martial arts there from the time they could walk. Evidently, Dad wanted all his sword moves at full power and flawlessly executed, and the place to do that was Kidron. Jonathan packed his swords and equipment for the next day’s work out.

By nine in the morning, Jon found his father hacking away with twin machetes on a large, dead sugar maple they used for shuriken target practice. The old man was stripped to the waist in his black jeans and cross trainers, with his hair in a long braid down his back. His silver clan medallion gleamed white at his throat in the morning sunlight. He was whirling like a dervish, hacking away at the trunk and numerous logs he had set up to simulate a standing army. Branches and chips flew in the still morning air, the machetes moved like twin circular blurs. He wasn’t even sweating.

     Jon approached the clearing near the brook, and placed his gear on the mossy bank.

“Reporting for practice, sifu!” Jon shouted, as he sorted through his battle bag for the appropriate equipment and weapons.

“Today, we’ll stick with the short swords,” the old man said, transitioning from a human buzz saw to a lecturing master in the space of a heartbeat, “to practice the transitions to and from an assassin’s grip.”

He had practiced these self same moves with his father since he was four years old, but the old man insisted that the technique needed something more to be effective. Jon wanted to talk to his Dad, but unless he was questioned directly, speaking was forbidden during the lessons. There would be plenty of time to chat during the breaks. Over and over again, the swords whirled in both hands, both overhand and underhand every time the old man barked. Showing the weakness in the move, the old wizard smacked at Jon’s blade in the middle of the transition and it stuck in the ground at his feet.

“As you turn the blade, keep your index and middle finger taut around the hilt,” instructed the old wizard, “and then tighten your complete fist on the hilt as it swings around into position. For an assassin‘s grip, your index finger positions the hilt, while your middle fingers stay taut, and then tighten your fist. ”

Again, the old man barked, and Jon reversed grip on both hands. It was looking better and felt more solid. The true test was completing the strokes on the fallen hardwoods that littered the forest after the last ice storm. Jon jumped, whirled and hacked at every branch that showed itself within his range. When his father barked, he would shift his grip, and in the process, sever the branches nearest to his arm. As always, the old man knew what he was talking about. It just took time and effort for Jon to understand its meaning.

“Dad, why are we doing this?” Jon asked during the break, while they sat on a stone near the stream.
“Because a swordsman, like his sword, must never lose his edge or he becomes obsolete,” the old wizard replied, while gazing steadily into the rippling water.

“We’ve practiced out here as long as I can remember.” Jon gestured at the woods, “I’ve never seen you push to this degree in all of those years. It was just a game we played as kids. We barely knew we were being trained in martial arts. But I know in my heart that this is serious, Dad. What’s it really all about? And how does it tie in with the upcoming lunar eclipse on your calendar?”

“In our culture, each full moon has its own name and characteristics through out the season.” the old man lectured. “Mostly in spell craft it is the new moon, or moonless nights on which evil curses are worked. The exception to this would be the Blood Moon, an eclipsed full moon, colored blood red. That could power a whopper of a curse to throw at someone.”

“You taught us in the craft,” Jon said, “that the Law of Threes makes it unwise for a true witch to send out curses, knowing they’ll come back threefold.”

“That’s true,” said the old man, “but I didn’t say we would be using curses. I’m talking about really bad, or foolish witches and warlocks.”

“But why the sword craft, Dad?” Jon asked. “Swords don’t stop curses.”

“Do you remember, about ten years ago, my study of the druid’s astrological wheel and rift energies?” the old man asked.

“Who could forget?” Jon reminisced.

     It was a bright summer solstice when his father had used a combination of sunlight and magic focused into a crystal orb to open the rift in the Devil’s Bathtub to the mythic world of Gwynydd.

“Faeries came flying out of a big ball of light in your hands,” Jon went on. “Us kids met Sundog for the first time that day, and Mel took his picture. You’re not